


Keep Us Warm

by ForensicSpider98



Series: Love After the Fact [30]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Cultural Differences, All this stress is bad for the baby, Altean Adam (Voltron), Altean Prince Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Aromantic Asexual Pidge | Katie Holt, Balmeran Hunk (Voltron), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, F/M, Galra Shiro (Voltron), Galran Prince Keith (Voltron), Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, Multi, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Olkari Pidge | Katie Holt, Post-War, it's keith. keith is the baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:15:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23831449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForensicSpider98/pseuds/ForensicSpider98
Summary: Just a lil' something to tide y'all over while i work on a big few episodes <3Also, how does one discuss future children with their child spouse? Asking for a friend...
Relationships: Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Alfor/Coran (Voltron), Allura/Lotor/Romelle (Voltron), Haggar/Zarkon (Voltron), Hunk & Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Love After the Fact [30]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1635043
Comments: 18
Kudos: 207





	Keep Us Warm

Keith stirs, uncomfortable. He’s _freezing_. The frigid air bites at his cheeks and the thin cartilage of his ears. The tip of his nose stings, and his fur is cold when he tries to rub warmth back into his face.

What the utter fuck? It _definitely_ wasn't this cold when they went to sleep last night. His eyes flutter open to spot Lance sleeping a few dashes away. 

Keith pulls the insufficient comforter over his ears, trying in vain to warm himself.

“Lance… _Lance_ …” He reaches over, pokes his spouse.

“Mnh.” The Altean stirs, more protesting than anything else.

“Lance, why’s it so cold in here?!”

Lance blinks awake. It is indeed freezing. He can see his own breath when he exhales. “Keith? Beloved? Did you leave the garden doors open last night?”

Keith peeks out from the blankets to check. “Fuck.”

“They’re wide open, aren’t they?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re the worst. Okay, stay here.” Lance throws back the blankets, rolls his eyes at Keith's subsequent outcry. “Baby.”

“You’re the baby!” Keith curls into a ball, freezing.

“What was that? Leave for breakfast and let you deal with our freezing cold bedroom?”

“You’re the best?”

“Damn quiznaking right.” Lance closes the garden doors, latches them shut. “I’ll even get a fire going.”

Keith listens as the crackle builds. After a moment, Lance crawls back into the bed, right up against him, curled around his smaller frame. “Don’t even complain. You leave the doors open, you deal with clingy Lance and his cold, cold toes.”

Keith snuggles down into the blankets, not minding a bit as their shared heat begins to build between them. “Please don’t let me do that again,” he mumbles. “I honestly hate the cold.”

“Hm. I love it. I like to be warm in it, but I do love it.”

“Disgusting.”

Lance giggles, settles in, face pressed right up against Keith's neck. He has to nose away locks of hair and the line of thick fur running down Galra prince's neck and back so he can breath, but it's a small matter.

The truth is, Lance has missed this proximity. Going from promiscuous and never without company to married to Keith has been a transition. Never mind the beating his libido has taken; that doesn't really matter in the long run. But he misses being close to people. He misses feeling the warmth of another body. And Keith is very warm. His heat sinks into Lance's bones with every breath.

Unbeknownst to him, Keith doesn't mind the proximity either. It reminds him of his den back home, curled up with his littermate or with his mother. It feels like family, like kinship, like Lance has filled a bit of that gap in his chest.

When the room is warm again, Lance reluctantly shakes Keith out of his doze. “It frosted in the night. Do you want to see?”

Keith sighs, reluctant to move, reluctant to leave.

“Might as well.”

Keith’s hatred for the cold is quickly forgotten.

Frost actually is beautiful. Everything -the ground, the singing tree, the bumblemoths clinging to the branches- is covered in frost, the water leached out, crystallizing into a fine layer of white.

Keith’s ears twitch, tail swinging back and forth, eyes alight with curiosity as he crouches at the edge of the frosted earth. He reaches out to tough the frost, but it disintegrates beneath his warm hand, the delicate formations fading before they can even meet his skin. Keith giggles, delighted, and tries it again.

Lance leans against the doors, smiling as he watches his spouse enjoy something new. He wishes there were more moments like this, where Keith can be a kit, be himself. He looks lovely, even if-

“Your hair looks like a nest.”

“Oh, fuck off. Silly prince.”

Lance just snickers, tugs on a tangled lock of dark hair. Keith tries to smack his hands away, but Lance simply catches one, presses a kiss to the back of it. “I’m glad you like the frost, beloved.”

“Hm.” Keith smiles, eyes averted. Then they light up again. “I wonder what the grotto looks like right now!”

“Wanna go see? Vetroneius is probably done with our cloaks by now and first frost is an unspoken holiday. Nobody will be working, so we have an excuse.”

“Okay!” Keith bounces up, practically dancing inside to find some clothes.

Lance grins, turning to watch him go. He lifts his eyes to the Ancients. _Just for today,_ he prays. _Just for today, let him be himself._

Keith does his best not to skip, wrapped up in thick clothes and a new cloak, the layers of fine leather and cloth trapping heat close to his skin. The frost crunches beneath his boots, clings to his clothes where they brush against the ground, against the trunks of the trees.

It's so still. He can hear Lance's heartbeat, hear his quiet laughter as Keith admires the ice crystals dangling from the tree branches.

The grotto is covered in a layer of white frost, the small creatures frozen in the ice. The pool is completely iced over, frozen over the past movement, solidified during the night. Keith’s first instinct, naturally, is to stand on the ice, which Lance indulges even though he knows it will only end with Keith slipping and falling.

Which he does. Almost immediately. Lance grins, leans over his fallen spouse. “Having fun?”

Keith laughs, laying back on the ice, braided hair trailing over the ice. “Yes, actually. I’ve seen frost before, when it gets cold at night. It’s normal. But _this_.” Keith raises his arms, hands gesturing to the crystalline structures glittering on the ceiling. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Lance settles next to his spouse, lowering himself carefully onto the ice, his cloak offering a protective layer. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Altea is beautiful… Daibazaal is beautiful, too, you know. It’s violent and inhospitable and the kriinli’i turn their prey inside out and hang them from trees, but it’s… natural. Everything here feels cultivated and artificial. On Daibazaal, everything feels wild. It grows how it wants.

“This frost reminds me of that. It does what it wants, and nothing stands in its way. It’s so delicate, but so stubborn. Like home.”

Lance smiles. “I can’t wait to see it. I’ve wanted to for a long time now. Maybe we’ll go there for your season. Adam says you’ll need rest after, so we could stay for a few movements. Maybe a phoeb.”

“Really?” Keith turns his head to look at him. Lance has spoken of this before, but Keith hadn't put stock in it at the time. “You- You’d actually do that? You’d let me go home?”

“I’m not _letting_ you go home. I _want_ you to go home. I want you to be happy and hold onto the people you had the leave behind. I imagine you feel like a prisoner here.”

“Not- Not all the time! Not when it’s just us,” Keith mumbles. “Or our friends,” he adds hastily. He doesn’t want to make this harder.

Lance hums, staring at the ice curled over the ceiling of the grotto. He’s not sure how to respond to that. There’s a few minutes of silence, then Keith speaks again.

“I-” Keith’s throat tightens momentarily. He finds Lance’s hand, grips it tight. “I’d really, really like to go home. Just for a little while.”

“You will.” Lance squeezes back, shifts to press that hand to his lips. He can hear the heartache in Keith’s voice. “I promise, beloved. Just hang on for me, alright? A few more phoebs; that's it. We need to get through the winter, and then we’ll go.”

“Okay. I'm here. Whatever you need.” Keith means that. He means it with ever beat of his hearts.

On the walk back through the frozen forest, Lance keeps an arm around Keith’s shoulders. It does absolutely nothing to help against the cold, but Keith leans into it anyway, grateful. He just has to make it through winter. Then his final growth will start and he’ll be able to go home for a while. All he has to do is make it through the winter.

"Allura will be so excited to see you," he whispers.

"I know. I can't wait." Lance grins. " _And_ I'll get to meet your mom. That'll be so cool. I bet she'll hate me."

"Oh, she will," Keith mumbles, smiling sheepishly. He can't help but think of his mother threatening to slaughter the overbred little whore. "But I think you'll grow on her. Y'know, like a wart or maybe a cancer."

"Wow, thanks so much, beloved. You're rotten to the core, you know that?"

"Nah, I'm just honest. She really will grow to like you, though. She likes good people."

"Aw, thanks beloved." Lance gives his spouse a squeeze. "If she's anything like you, I bet I'll like her, too."

"She's better than me," Keith whispers, allowing Lance to help his through the gap in the wall. "She's braver, and fierce, and she's so loyal."

"Loyal to what?"

"Freedom. That's what she wants. She wants more freedom for my people. They're expected to birth at least five kits in one centaphoeb, required to serve two centaphoebs in the military-"

"Wait. _Five kits_? In _one centaphoeb_? That's insane!"

" _Expected_. They're encouraged to try for eight. It is a lot, especially since the physical output for a season is already immense. But you need people to expand an empire, and kits don't birth themselves."

"Hm." Lance knows they need to discuss these things, and soon. But this day is for Keith. He wants it to be stress- and worry-free. Just one day.

The Galra prince hurries ahead, clearly eager to get warm again. He turns to Lance with a grin. "Are you coming or what, Altean?"

Lance chuckles, hastens his steps. Just one day. Thank the Ancients for just one day.

**Author's Note:**

> Next time on Love After the Fact: A certain trio plus one (two?) arrives on Altea!


End file.
